This chapter argues that bioethics should properly be understood as a disciplinary matrix that serves the modern Leviathan of state and market. The purpose of doing so, of course, is to narrate a rather different vision of “public bioethics”. For without a more accurate accounting of the nature and function of public bioethics, it will not be possible to begin to posit how “religion” might even begin to position itself in relationship to it.
Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia are among
the fastest growing health problems in America. Dementia incidence
tends to increase with age, and the elderly are the fastest
growing segment of the population. Medical and social sciences
research on dementia involving demented patients is both ongoing
and necessary. However, as noted in a report of the Office for
Human Subjects Research, “while research with intellectually
impaired people generates valuable … data, it also provides
significant ethical challenges.
David E. Guinn is senior associate and research professor of international law and human rights in the Center for International Development in the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy, University at Albany. He has directed international governance and rule of law projects in Afghanistan, Côte d'Ivoire, Iraq, Lebanon, and Mexico. His writings cover topics including international development, governance, rule of law, human rights, religion, and violence. Abstract: Both the donor community and scholars have created a cottage industry studying "fragile" states. International nongovernmental organizations that have developed indexes measuring corruption or governance have been unkind to Afghanistan. One index suggests a different and more optimistic story. The International Budget Partnership measures transparency every two years with its Open Budget Index. Afghanistan demonstrated dramatic improvement on this index between 2008 and 2012. The authors use the improvement in Afghanistan's transparency score as an entry point to explore how donors try to intervene and promote transparency as part of broader efforts in public financial management development and how legislative strengthening has also contributed to budget reform. The analysis offers a modest corrective to the overly pessimistic assessments of fragile states by showing that a fragile state can improve its budgetary transparency and enhance governance by strengthening the legislature's involvement in the budget process.
Practitioner Points• Donors may encourage governments to be more transparent by complying with the Open Budget Index or other standards; however, transparency may be more effectively enhanced when coordinate branches of the government (i.e., the legislature) and civil society organizations are convinced that it is in their interest to obtain public budgeting and finance information. • Public managers promoting institutional reform in fragile states need to consider the interplay between multiple actors within the host ministry (such as the ministry of finance) and other governmental and nongovernmental players that interact with the host ministry. • Although many are skeptical about the potential for improving governance in fragile states, modest reforms can be achieved, but they require sustained efforts by donors and international nongovernmental advocacy organizations.
Efforts to combat trafficking are hindered by poor understandings of the problem. Using Latin America as a case study, this article identifies the definitional, sociological, and legal issues that hinder an accurate assessment of the problem. The article focuses not upon the empirical problems of assessment, but upon those issues within the compass of policy makers and advocates. The article then describes the basic features of trafficking in Latin America and identifies efforts to address the problem, highlighting the role of the United States, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, (TVPA) and the donor/NGO community. Finally, the article suggests appropriate methods for limiting the problem and assisting its victims.
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